


White

by charliewalkertexasranger



Category: Scream (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, First Kiss, Hospitals, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Overdosing, Plot Twists, References to Depression, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Crush, fluff but not really, is headcanoning charlie walker's phone passcode considered obsessive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charliewalkertexasranger/pseuds/charliewalkertexasranger
Summary: There's enough white in a hospital room that it almost seems like you're already dying and being pulled up into the blinding light that supposedly precedes death. White walls, white ceiling. White floors. White curtains. White sheets and cabinets and yellowish skin lining my arms that is so pale that it might as well actually be white.Why is obvious—his sexuality, his budding alcoholism, an acute lack of friends and attention that isn't a result of his webcast—but, for Robbie, remembering when and how he overdosed is much harder.





	White

**Author's Note:**

> this went a 100% different direction than I thought it would

There's enough white in a hospital room that it almost seems like you're already dying, being pulled up into the blinding light that supposedly precedes death. White walls, white ceiling. White floors. White curtains. White sheets and cabinets and yellowish skin lining my arms that is so pale that it might as well actually _be_ white. 

It's a strange coincidence, then, that the last thing I remember is white. A big flash of white, just like this hospital room, where I could see and hear and think nothing else but _white_ , and even where it should have been so simple, given they were all situated on the same thing, my senses all seemed disjointed from one another.

Everything, for the most part, is white. Pure white.

When I awaken, I recognize where I am, but I have no idea why or when or how it happened; all I do know is the hospital room, the paleness of the ceiling tiles, and Charlie, as he stands by my bedside.

"You're awake," he whimpers. "You're awake!"

I squint. Charlie glances over his shoulder and back.

"Y-Yeah..."

"I'm not supposed to be in here. Visiting hours ended like... eight hours ago," he says, barely louder than a whisper. "But it's a private room anyway, and I couldn't leave you. Not after... what happened."

After _what happened?_ All I remember is the  _white_. Unless I got here via flashbang attack, which I sincerely doubt, I don't know a thing. I'm lost, entirely.

Time to see what he knows. 

And judging by the relief in his gaze, and printed across his face, and pounded into his smile, all of which seems ready to fall away into terror or anger or grief at any minute, he knows quite a bit.

"...What _happened?_ " I ask. My voice is low, and shaky, and weak, as if someone hooked it to a pump and sucked out all of the emotion—it's nothing like it usually is, only another hint at major disaster, at violence, at agony.

Whatever happened, it was  _something_.  
  
Maybe I finally drank myself to death, but had my suffering prolonged by the horrible hands of fate.  
  
Sounds about right.  
  
"Robbie," he rasps, sounding almost as weak as I do, "you overdosed."

I would be one to overdose.

On paper, it seems like a horrible way to die, gagging up bloody foam, feeling faint and suffocated and cold, shaking, seizures, bursts of pain from within, but when you're desperate, anything seems like a ticket to freedom.

And, for all I don't know, I _do_ know that I was desperate. That is a given. I was desperate to escape, and I can't pinpoint a recent time in my life where I could afford not to be.

For one, for an obvious, obvious number one, I'm never going to be comfortable with the way I feel around Charlie. It's gone beyond wanting someone to follow me around during  _Hall Pass_  and riff cheap slasher flicks with. It's gone beyond running Cinema Club and being there to listen to him whine about girls. It's gone beyond platonic friendship and any of its components. 

It's gone to the point of consuming me from the inside out, catching my body and stringing me up like a net out of a cliché jungle adventure movie, and leaving me with no way to be freed. It's gone to the point where I freeze and can't breathe, can't speak, sometimes, when he laughs, or smiles, or looks at me just right, and that's not how friends feel for friends.

The Internet porn was one thing. Wanting to view the things I want to view was one thing.

But when those fantasies leak into reality...

As bad as that probably seems, and definitely seems, in my own mind, Charlie's smooth, quiet charm being too much for my impressionable blossoming sexuality is really the least of my problems. I could have grown to accept myself, and now that whatever I tried to do to myself with that overdose evidently failed, I  _can_ grow to accept myself. I've been given a pardon. 

Though I hold that pardon, brandish it like a knife and use it to impale the drug-snorting college blondes who have more sex than I do, not that it says much, it doesn't seem to help against anything else.

I've tried to drown _it_ out in attention, and in energy, and by pretending to be happy, but nothing seems to work. I've tried starting a webcast to make friends; all that did was get me fake friends trying to make themselves famous and leave me with one small passion in my life, a passion I can watch myself throw away through, again, a  _suicide attempt_. One I can't even remember. In the end, nothing works.

The only thing I can drown  _it_ in is booze. That statement has implications.

Now to learn what all of that culminated into.

"I saw the ambulance and got worried that you'd done something to yourself. I drove behind your parents and kept telling myself it wasn't real, you hadn't done it, and I was freaking out so bad while I was telling your friends, in case you didn't make it... I'm just glad you're still here."

"I don't remember it..."

"I know, they didn't expect you to."

Charlie leans in closer, like he's spotted something moving on me, but his eyes remain fixed on mine. It closes the space between us, and for that brief moment in time, I have courage. Courage to go on. Courage from knowing that no matter what happens, I've got him by my side, and he'll be here through the highs and the lows and the unstable stability of the middle.

Courage that I use for honesty.

"I was probably drunk," I add, with a strength that displays a relative lack of shame, for someone who just tried to kill himself and remembers nothing about it. "Maybe it seemed like a better idea then."

"Robbie, when you get out of here, you're gonna have to stop."

It's a cycle. I steal alcohol and feel bad for drinking all of it at once; entire cases of beer, the better part of a bottle of vodka, whatever I can get my hands on to drown out the endless screaming of the pain. I'm too young to have permanently destroyed my organs, yet, and any damage I have right now had to have come from the overdose, but it still destroys me, to know I'm putting my health and my life and my relationships at risk like that, just to drink, and I end up feeling worse than when I started off, so I drink again, to cope with that. Now, breaking the cycle I've put myself into is harder than fixing any of the issues in my life that got me into drinking in the first place.

"I've tried. It's not easy."

Charlie's steely blue gaze grows firm, and if I had to put it down, look away, I doubt I could.

"It's never easy," he muses; his attention remains fixed on me, like he's too strong to glance away, even under the impact of a remark we both know will doom me to death if followed too closely.

Those words give birth to a silence, the kind that is pregnant but never really seems to show a sign of it until it is ready to give birth. I break it first.

"If I hear it from anyone, I want to hear it from you first, okay?" I say, because, really, I do. Charlie's presence itself is calming. I could hear almost anything and stay relaxed, if under distress, when he's by my side, because when he's around, I don't feel so alone. "How bad off am I?"

That question, evidently, is enough to get him to look away; after a pause, too long, too awkward, too alarming, he swallows like his throat hasn't seen moisture in a decade and puts his hand, warm, solid, over mine, clammy and sad.

That can't be a good sign.

None of this is.

"I heard the doctor talking to your parents," he whimpers, his rough voice strained. He's always sounded gravelly, hoarse, but never in this way, a way without strength but with energy, like a boyfriend stabbed too deep giving his very last squeaks of encouragement to the final girl. "If they'd found you like... half an hour later, you'd have needed a liver transplant, and the waiting list is so long..." 

His fingertips ease over my knuckles, back, forth, back, forth, in endless, loopy circles over my skin. There's a warmth, unequaled, trickling through my chest to fill the pit of my stomach like a bubbling syrup, or, more appropriately, given the fact that I'm lying in a hospital bed with the subject of Stab-a-Thonand the ruins of Cinema Club hanging open, much more like hot, fresh blood, still smelling of copper and still flowing freely in rhythm with its host's failing heartbeat. And that could have been _mine_ , had I succeeded.  
  
What if no one found me in time? I would have probably choked to death on my own vomit, bled out under my skin, or something equally as violent and horrifying. Though I don't remember what I took or where I collapsed, overdoses aren't instantaneous or easy when they rot you from the inside out. I'm already in so much pain.

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to put everyone through this. 

When I decided to put  _Charlie_ through this.

Who was the first person standing at my side when I came to?

Charlie.

Who was the one to reassure me through a fucking  _suicide attempt_ , something that will probably drive everyone else away with the overwhelming stigma, if it hasn't already?

Charlie.

Who's going to be there when I get off this IV and the rumors start to fly about the unexplained gap in my webcast and the reason I look like I've had every drop of blood in my body drained out of me with a straw and then halfheartedly pumped back in?

Charlie, most definitely.  
  
And I treat him like this?  
  
Maybe I deserved to die, and this was all a mistake.

His distinctively large, round eyes glint with the newborn shells of tears, and his faltering grip on my hand tightens.

"I just... why didn't you  _tell_ someone?"

There's something in my chest that, while familiar, is not something I like to feel there, and definitely not something I know well.

I didn't tell anyone because I felt alone.

But right now?

With him, things seem brighter. Sometimes, all it takes is one person to make you feel truly valued, truly appreciated, truly  _safe_ , even when you're both stuck chained to the ground and braving a windstorm of trauma.

"No one wanted to listen."

"That's a damn lie and you know it."

He's right. He's right as hell. It might not be the best way to approach the topic with someone who just attempted suicide, but he's still right. He would have listened to me; he would have sat there for a fucking year if he had to, doing anything to avoid losing his favorite movie geek to his own demons.

"It is," I agree, blindly, without question. "But it felt that way."

Charlie seats himself on the mattress, next to my shins.

"I hope you know I would have listened to just about anything coming out of your mouth."

Something's drawn tight between us, holding steady for the moment, but crackling threateningly as it teases the idea of snapping.

I know precisely what would happen when that something finally gave in, if I weren't in the hospital, if I weren't so weak that breathing itself is a laborious process. For a second that feels to be years, I regret again. I want that. I would take that in a heartbeat, however it turns out, even if it fractures our friendship forever and leaves me completely alone and even more heartbroken.

There's something else, though, that's captivated my attention.

He said he'd have listened. That means he'll listen now.

"I don't remember anything about the moment. It's like it got sucked out of me," I say. "I just... have problems. Big ones. They're so big that, when I put them in front of the camera, no one's able to see them in full. And I just... I guess I got sick of struggling like that."

It feels better, somehow, to admit the truth, to pour all my thoughts like I'm dumping out a purse onto his floor. I  _don't_ remember. Whether it was the shock or the pills themselves, maybe some kind of coping mechanism by my body to keep myself alive that inadvertently erased my short-term memories, I've been left completely dependent on his version of events to piece together what happened, and his version of events can only go so far, considered he didn't show up until the ambulance did.

Charlie whines my name, and then he shuts his eyes, either beneath the strength of concentration or distress.

It must have been the former and not the latter.

"I'm gonna treat you exactly like you deserve. As soon as you're out of here, we're just gonna forget it all. It'll be you, me, and all of the _Stab_ movies back-to-back. We can talk an entire night away, if you want," he whispers, letting his eyes meet mine again. A smile's unfurled across his slim, pink lips; I melt into a slurry of warmth, oozing on the inside.

Hypnotic.

It's a shame I wouldn't have the strength to say anything even if I hadn't just tried to end my life.

"I'd like someone to listen to me for once," I say. "Thanks."

"Nah, man, that's kind of the point of friends."

He looks away again, toward the wall. I want to drag his gaze back onto me, but I'm powerless to, on my own. 

He's sitting so close to me that the only thing between us is my sheet and our clothes. There is no space between us.

Again, I have courage.

Courage that I use for honesty.

"Hey, Charlie? This is a bad time, considered everything I just did, but I need to tell you anyway."

It isn't unconventional to come out after a suicide attempt. Sometimes, the letter does that for you. But I don't remember writing a letter, and even if I did, I doubt I'd have come out in it.

"Yeah?"

"I like you. Always have. Always will."

 _That_ puts his focus back on me, easy.

"Like... _like_?"

His eyes light up, unsure, and something in my chest  _explodes_ ,something with a discernible lurch and collapse and impact that gives off a heat which rises into my throat and stays there, caught tight. 

He wants me.

Maybe he's always wanted me.

Now, in retrospect, it seems too, too obvious.

And it might just be the sudden flood of hormones, probably, but why would I ever have wanted to kill myself? My life sucks. My life is fucking terrible. I have an alcohol problem, and I'm depressed, and gay, and every day I feel as though the cage I'm trapped in gets a little smaller, a little tighter, a little more restrictive. But Charlie's here. That's all worth fighting through, to see him. He can fix it all a million times over.

"Yeah. You mean a lot to me," I say, before adding quietly, "I mean, you could have just left me. Or been scared of me. Or thought I deserved it. But you didn't! And... that's really brave of you."

Charlie closes his eyes, like he's taking a moment to process my own paranoia.

"I wouldn't do any of that shit, especially not to you."

"So  _b_ _rave._ "

"Not too loud! The brave ones always die."

We both chuckle, and it's the highest point of the conversation in a long time.

I remember when we made that up. We were watching a late-night rerun of  _Pinata: Survival Island_ for the sake of having nothing better to do and the fact that it ran before the original  _Halloween_. The brave ones  _always_ die. Usually as heroes, but they die nonetheless. And Charlie had nudged me and we'd sat there and came up with the idea to chime in with fake alarm whenever anyone got called brave.

I'm not going to argue with anything involving Charlie, especially when I know the answer was in a handful of pills, but why do I remember that so clearly and not my own suicide attempt?

Charlie's voice boots me out of my thoughts.

"Am I like... supposed to kiss you now? Or..."

"I think so? I—"

Fuck.

I feel his weight shift over top of me as he leans down, and then it happens, he closes his hot mouth over mine and steals my breath away. Tears swell in my eyes, my skin burns, my chest throbs—I know precisely why it hurts, even if it's something I've wanted for so long.

Being terrified of this was, first and foremost, why I almost threw my life away. The alcohol problem, the general negative thoughts that could best be described as a dormant depression... everything stemmed from this, blooming from the one solitary source that was my sexuality.

But despite that, I enjoy it, the way his heat meets mine, and when he pulls away to breathe a shallow breath, I can't help but be a little disappointed when his weight eases off of me.

After a moment, when he's returned to his sitting position, he speaks.

"That was... nice."

It was.

It was relieving to know that I didn't need to hide how I feel for him, not anymore.

It was comfortable. I could get used to it.

 _Very_ used to it.

And, for a stumbling second, I regret what I did in full. If I weren't _here_ right now... that could have turned into something else. But Charlie is far from daring enough to fuck me in a hospital bed, and I'm far from physically stable enough to like it.

Charlie looks away for a few minutes, and together, we breathe in the aftermath. Then, he turns back toward me and heaves himself onto his feet.

"Hey, I forgot to ask if you wanted water or something. You look awful."

No shit, Charlie. No shit.

"I just ate like... six bottles of pills or whatever. Of course I look awful," I say. "But yeah, please."

The mood from earlier has been shattered, torn away with massive, hooked claws, and now, there's happiness, if only artificial, the kind that leaves as soon as he does. A kind I've known a lot of, to be honest. A kind I'd never once thought could exist in times so dark, despite its own lingering darkness in the knowledge that it is temporary and will soon disappear. 

But it's a kind that isn't blunted by its own fakeness, thankfully, and even if, hours ago, I wanted death, and I still want death even though Charlie's here with me, I can pretend to feel like everything's alright. I can smile and laugh and joke like normal, and only be in unequaled agony on the inside.

"There's the Robbie we know and love," he says, ruffling my hair with his palm. He does that a lot, despite our lack of height difference, and until now, I was sure it was just because we're friends and my hair is nice to touch (it is), and I always reacted accordingly, suppressing the rush of magma in my throat that oozed down into my chest. But my feelings for him, that apparently, less than half a day ago, I tried to kill myself over, are now open to be expressed, and that changes everything about the dynamic of this. 

I let that magma feeling go freely where it pleases. It's much nicer. It doesn't repair anything else, but not having to hold back out of guilt is going to be easy to get used to.

Charlie takes a few steps backward.

"I'll be right back."

"You're not supposed to say that either!"

He laughs, but it's clear he's trying to keep it quiet. How early is it? Or late? The only light in the room is artificial, despite the windows. It's  _definitely_ past visiting hours. Doesn't a nurse come and check at some point?

I'm not going to complain, since It's just Charlie. It is, however, a little alarming that someone could camp out in my room during the night.

I watch Charlie until he opens the door to the bathroom and disappears behind it. No sooner than when the door squeaks into a halt, a small, high  _ding_ shoots through the air, as if to formally introduce itself—Charlie's phone. I glance toward the source of the noise. There it is, black against white, a flat box lying at the foot of my bed, formally begging for my attention, if that's at all possible.

I must not have seen it earlier; he would have been sitting in front of it. Maybe it fell out of his pocket. But I have to hide it. I can't bring myself to wait until he comes back. It wouldn't bother me under any other circumstances, except, perhaps, by jabbing me with the nudges of budding curiosity at the thought of someone messaging him, but right now? Colors are too loud and sounds are too bright. _Everything_ is too intense for a lagging, failing mind stuck beneath the cloudy haze of sudden illness.

I don't know if this feeling is permanent. It would be life-altering if it were, if I had to put my head down and battle the urge to cry and scream every time there was too much contrast in my environment. I'd be a laughing stock. Even Charlie,  _my_ Charlie, who's stuck with me through the best and the worst and what was apparently a suicidal crisis, would probably leave me behind over that.

I don't know if I could go on. My problems then were enough to make me go through with ending my life, but if Charlie didn't want to be with me... that'd be a pain that would burrow into the deepest, most intimate recesses of my soul and burn me away slowly, slowly, painfully, until I am nothing but ash. It would hurt like nothing I've known before, and, in turn, nothing that drove me to this point.

But right now, I can focus only on the agony coursing through my forehead, between my eyes, and what it'll take to relieve it.

I strain my arm down to scoop up Charlie's phone. There it is, leaning against my fingertips, just out of reach; I arch my side, twisting toward it, and my fingers reach just enough to pinch it between my thumb and forefinger. I bring it up to my chest. 

What should I do with it? My head feels as though it's filling with hot, pressurized blood, and whoever has the reins to my body, controlling me, teeters on the edge of drunkenness and, with every movement I make, threatens to jerk their arms and overturn me into the snowdrifts lining the road we travel endlessly. 

With their whip at my back, and my own body giving out beneath the anxiety, I make a quick decision.

Who sent that text? Is it about me?

Maybe someone else is worried. Kirby. Or Jill. Olivia, maybe. Hell, even Trevor or Jenny. It'll be nice to feel valued by someone else, even if it won't mean as much as it would coming from Charlie. Maybe if they'd spoken up earlier, I wouldn't have done this. But I don't remember what state I was in, or if this would have helped at all.

I let my finger nip down on the button, and, within the space of a second, I lift Charlie's phone up to see one message.

_5:41am >so Charlie how's the project going?_

It's from Jill.

Project?

This is about a  _project_?

Is she totally unaware what happened? Maybe it's not gotten out yet. I might still have a chance at passing my absence and my obvious pallor and weakness, which, right now, at least, feel like they'll never leave, off as a trailing illness, saving me copious amounts of embarrassment.

But then I remember what Charlie said, about having told my immediate friends about what I'd done when no one was sure if I was going to survive yet, in case I didn't survive. Jill knows. She has to know.

Charlie keeps his phone locked, but even if I didn't know his passcode by heart, the same way he knows mine, it wouldn't be difficult to figure out in a few strategic guesses.

 _Ghostface721_. Easy.

I hate the feeling of snooping, the heat down my neck, the fluttering in my chest, but when I've felt so completely weak and exhausted and cold, it's almost a relief. 

 _Tuesday 6:45pm >this is a pretty stupid plan. we needed him for the remake. but if you say so I mean youre the expert. we can't have either of us to pussy out mid-murder lol!!! and by either of us i mean u charles_  
  
_6:46pm >If you think about it hard enough and disregard all the mental illness mumbo jumbo, he's just my Judith Myers. My practice before the bodies really start dropping._

...What? Did he...? And is he planning to...

Charlie.

Fuck, Charlie.

 _6:46pm >But no one has to know that. He's already depressed. Nothing sketchy about that. And really, if you want to make a good reboot, you need an edgy backstory for the survivors. It's practically a guarantee post-2002. Molestation, rape, domestic abuse, maybe betrayal, the death of a best friend... _  
  
_6:47pm >You've already got Trevor. I need my Trevor. _  
  
_6:47pm >Minus the sex stuff._  
  
_6:49pm >lmao except in closet boy's dreams!!!_  
  
_6:49pm >True._  
  
_6:49pm >I mean, you do see the way he looks at me, right?_

So he knew. This entire time, he knew. He could have just told me he knew how I felt for him and removed one of the most consuming stressors from my life, having to constantly worry if what I say to him, how I act around him, comes off as putting out feelers to see if he's gay, too. 

Why am I more upset about that than him literally plotting to kill me and putting me in the hospital? Even between horror geeks who fantasize about various fictional murders just about every waking moment, murder, the ultimate betrayal, the taking of another human life, is still as low as one can go, especially when your murderer is your best friend.

 _6:50pm >who doesn't tho. _ _ofc kirby wasnt there but olivia said you two would make a good couple once oml_

Hilarious.

So he doesn't feel anything for me.

No, if he didn't feel anything, then he couldn't resent me. And right now, I'm sure he hates me so much that he doesn't even want to give me the mercy of living.

Good to know.

  
_Wednesday 7:37pm > Job's done, Jill. Within ninety-six hours, we mourn the loss of a legend._  
  
_7:44pm >"legend"_  
  
_7:44pm >"mourn"_  
  
_7:45pm >these quotes give me life charlie these fucking quotes._  
  
_7:45pm >oi keep me updated ok_  
  
_7:45pm >oh and u never told me how it works??_

 _7:46pm >I'll use the burner phone for a while, so if anything big happens, it'll come through here._  
  
_7:47pm >I looked online, so trust me on this one. It'll fuck his liver so bad that his other organs give out under the stress, and, you know, not having a vital organ. Once it's metabolized completely and the effect hits, it'll hit so hard that the pain will knock him out, and we'll go from there._  
  
_7:49pm >oof, thats horrible_  
  
_7:49pm >love my sick little fuck_  
  
_7:50pm >Lol._

 _Yesterday 11_ _:13pm >As was expected, the ambulance came. Everything's going according to plan; he's in the hospital right now. They're running tests. Not sure what else to do but play it cool and wait. _  
  
_11:14pm >Honestly, though, can you imagine how insane this'll be for the media? Two weeks before the remake, my best friend kills himself! It's like the opening to a movie! We can play him up to be a bigger friend of yours later. Could even make him your cooler, less shitty, secret ex, if you want to ditch the gay thing._  
  
_11:16pm >ew no. you and trevor already got a shot and im not opening the doors again_  
  
_11:16pm >Fair point. _  
  
_11:16pm >tbh im actually kind of alarmed they didnt find foul play_  
  
_11:16pm >good job_

 _11:17pm >Feels good._  
  
_Today 3:11am >Fuck, he's alive. What do I do? This whole operation could be blown. What if he remembers?_  
  
_3:14am >Jill _  
  
_3:15am >Jill _  
  
_3:18am >Jill _  
  
_3:19am >Jill _  
  
_3:19am >Jill_  
  
_3:20am >calm the fuck down jesus its nbd just finish him off_  
  
_3:21am > i did research too, youre welcome charlie you dumb motherfucker. _  
  
_3:21am >smothering him is easy but not realistic enough so if he pulls back through bring him a drink or smth to eat and lace it w/ like 500mg more, make it look like he took extended release. no one will even know unless they look, and i doubt it cause even an autopsy would overlook it i bet._

 _3:22am >failing that or if he remembers/knows just shove the pillow over his face not optimal i doubt he'll be very strong considered u just gave him enough to kill a large dog_  
  
_3:22am >here's to closet boy puking up blood, the true twist opening!!!!_

_5:41am >so Charlie how's the project going?_

What the fuck.

My heart, which I'm sure has been pumping top speed for several minutes now, ever since I read the first message to imply they were going to poison me, thunders rapidly in my chest, echoing behind my sternum, vibrating through my ribs. Hot blood rushes hard in my ears and through my temples, bubbling. 

How could he  _do_ this? My best friend, the best friend I'm fully convinced is my soulmate... he tried to  _kill_ me.

 _Charlie_ tried to kill me.

And if I wait any longer, he will return, and, this time, whether he overpowers me or poisons me, he will succeed. He will kill me. Inaction is suicide, and _real_ suicide, not my own murder being pinned on me.

But is it even worth living, to carry with me the knowledge that someone I thought, not ten minutes ago, loved me, could show such a callous disregard for me, to the point of being fully willing to end my life? I can't find an answer. I don't think I'll  _ever_ be able to find an answer. If I end up really committing suicide after this, my current self wouldn't be surprised. Those text messages are enough to implicate Charlie a thousand times over, but those text messages are enough to break my heart. Could I go on in a world where they exist?

Though I don't know what difference it'll make, I need help, and I suppose that's what it's for, even if, really, I would prefer the assistance of a cop or a noose to a third shift nurse, so I reach for the call button with unsteady, aching fingers. Despite the fact that I am so clammy that I cannot feel anything quite right, a beep rings through the air, reverberating through my collapsing soul.

And exactly how the memories left, they all come surging back—in an endless sea of white.

* * *

But for all my effort, Charlie is the next person to enter the room.


End file.
